Object in The Oz Series
the balloon
Also known as a big bag of green silk, our balloon, the big balloon, my balloon, the basket-car, the car of his balloon.
A large hot-air balloon Oz built to cross the desert out of Oz, in which he and the balloon-basket fell through a crack in the earth caused by an earthquake and descended into the Land of the Mangaboos; having lost too much gas to rise again, it settled onto the great glass square and was abandoned there by the Wizard as of no further use, though he kept the basket-car's lanterns and kerosene oil.
Appears in 5 chapters, first in chapter 17, last in chapter 84.
This encyclopedia covers chapters 1 to 100 of the story and shows the world as it stands at chapter 100, so it contains spoilers up to that point. To read it spoiler free, one chapter at a time, open the interactive codex.
What the story establishes
| Appearance | A big bag of green silk more than twenty feet long, sewn in strips of light green, dark green, and emerald green, with a big clothes basket tied to its bottom by many ropes. (as of ch. 17) |
| Object type | Artifact |
| Properties | A hot-air balloon: the silk is coated with glue to be airtight and it floats by being filled with hot air, so it rises while the air is hot but would come down in the desert if the air cooled. (as of ch. 17) |
Relationships
- uses ← Oz (ended) ch. 72Oz used his balloon to go up in the air to draw crowds to the circus, but it descended through the crack in the earth and landed him in the Land of the Mangaboos.
- creates ← Oz (ended) ch. 17Oz builds a hot-air balloon of green silk in the Palace, cutting the silk into strips, coating the bag with glue to make it airtight, and fastening a clothes-basket gondola, planning to float across the desert out of Oz.
- uses ← Oz (ended) ch. 17Oz climbs into the balloon's basket and rides it up into the sky when the ropes snap, floating away out of the Emerald City for good and leaving Dorothy behind.
- creates ← Dorothy (ended) ch. 17Dorothy helps build the balloon by sewing the silk strips neatly together with needle and thread as fast as Oz cuts them into shape.
From the text
when it was finished they had a big bag of green silk more than twenty feet long.Chapter 17
See the balloon chapter by chapter in the interactive codex →